summoning magic cap

[Secondplanet]

I was thinking, with SE making us collect gear that doesn't exist to be able to use the upcoming nerf to PD to amass 600+ summoning magic i think its only fair to not request but DEMAND they rework how summoning magic effects our avatars and their attacks.

At level 75 most of my avatar buffs are the exact same as they are now and most attacks do the same damage (given i'm not wearing any new gear) so since they want to start singling us out i think our magic skill should reflect better with our avatars.

My whole reasoning behind this is that they are demanding a currently impossible to reach goal to gain the full effect of our 2hr while every other job gains full effect at lvl 1, whm's benediction isn't weaker for having less healing magic, soul voice isn't effected for not capping singing skill, hundred fist isn't slower for my h2h not being capped so why is smn the only job to have such restrictions on their 2hr ability?

Love to get feedback on my view with this.

[Herby]

You forgot to mention that Summoner gets a stance (avatar's favor) that cripples us more than it gives us benefits (roughly 15-20% less damage, potency buildup takes longer than a minute and resets on blood pacts vs. -3 perp cost and mediocre buffs, since we don't get them to full potency if we want to use our avtars for more) while Samurai gets a stance (Hasso) which only drawback is something that Samurais aren't even able to do NATIVELY (recast on spells).

Avatars favor was done right in that it gets stronger with more SMN skill, but was done wrong that it resets every damn time we do something with our Avatars.

Otherwise I'm totally with you. So many broken things on our beloved Job are pretty easy to fix but SE refuses to even see them as broken. We never got ANY statement regarding Avatar's Favor and the potency reset on Blood Pacts. Does SE really expect us to stand still and do nothing to gain the effect of favor?

Being a main SMN was always hard and sadly I don't expect this to change ;(

[Babekeke]

My whole reasoning behind this is that they are demanding a currently impossible to reach goal to gain the full effect of our 2hr while every other job gains full effect at lvl 1,

Wrong.


whm's benediction isn't weaker for having less healing magic

No, but have a lvl 1 WHM use Benediction on you won't help you much as it's based a lot on the level of the WHM.


soul voice isn't effected for not capping singing skill

No, but having very gimped skill means that the songs aren't as potent to begin with, so even with SV, the songs aren't as potent as a fully skilled BRD's SV songs.


hundred fist isn't slower for my h2h not being capped

No, but with gimped H2H skill it's just hundred misses. As an aside to this, Hundred Fists only gives you 75% delay reduction, so you can actually get the same effect without using HF, through songs and haste spell and gear.


so why is smn the only job to have such restrictions on their 2hr ability?

Aside from the other ones that you mentioned that I already commented on:

SCH's Embrava is highly reliant on high enhancing skill (not just capped, but lots of gear too). Kaustra Duration is based on dark magic skill too.


Love to get feedback on my view with this.

So, you're right, we're being shafted with the whole skill for PD nerf, but we're not alone. And to be honest, in small chunks it's not a huge difference. 20 skill gives 1 second duration, 40 skill gives 1 second of full strength immunity and 1 second of decaying effectiveness.

Unless, the new way it works is that we get the initial 30 seconds is full immunity, and only the additional time from skill is where it decays, regardless of the max duration. Which would be nice.

[Metaking]

well smn does need alot of help heck last time i checked all that nice enhances avatar attack doesn't even effect tp rounds, only bloodpacts. also excluding brd and its duel stat nature, doesn't most magic skills cap at 500 on effect?

[Secondplanet]

Babekeke i don't mean to pick on you but you missed the whole point i was making with the 2hr abilities. Monks ability isn't effected by how high their H2H is. With whm it isn't based on their healing magic but their level and their parties level so if you in a group of 60's it will act the same as it would for lvl 99's. I'm pointing out that the max you can get currently in the game is something around 547 with 417 being the base unmodified cap.

[Arcon]

well smn does need alot of help heck last time i checked all that nice enhances avatar attack doesn't even effect tp rounds, only bloodpacts.

I didn't know about that. Do you have any testing handy for it?


also excluding brd and its duel stat nature, doesn't most magic skills cap at 500 on effect?

I guess, but there are too many exceptions to call it a rule. Even Summoning Magic itself has an exception, namely for Elemental Siphon, which is uncapped.


Babekeke i don't mean to pick on you but you missed the whole point i was making with the 2hr abilities. Monks ability isn't effected by how high their H2H is.

What difference does it make? They are affected by skill, only indirectly, where this one is affected by it directly. I guess they made this with future gear in mind, to be able to cap it later on in the game.

[Babekeke]

I'm not even sure that they made it with intensions of making future gear, just so that if they do bring out new gear with +20 skill per piece, we won't be able to extend it past 1 min.

And right now, those extra 3 seconds aren't going to make a great difference.

[Sargent]

SE never said they expect us to hit 600+ skill, they only announced that there would be a cap on the duration of PD. Like how gear haste and BP delay had a cap at 75, for a long time you could not hit that cap.


I'm not even sure that they made it with intensions of making future gear, just so that if they do bring out new gear with +20 skill per piece, we won't be able to extend it past 1 min.

And right now, those extra 3 seconds aren't going to make a great difference.
I'm pretty sure that Marduk Legs/Feet will have at least +10 skill, Head will easily be more than +10 skill, but regardless I doubt we'll see a way to hit 560+ for a while, let alone 600.


Monks ability isn't effected by how high their H2H is.
Hate to be pedantic, but it kinda is. H2H skill affects the base damage. Either way, SMN is by far not the only 2hr based on skill. For melee based 2 hours, more skill = more acc & atk = more damage. For BLM/RDM, remove the atk and it's the same thing. And don't get me started on Tabula Rasa. Sure, combat/magic skill is gonna do squat for Invincble/Perfect Dodge/Familiar but it is for most 2 hours. Where I agree none of these examples (barring Tabula Rasa) demand nearly as much skill to maximize potential as Perfect Defense will (no one is disagreeing that 600 skill to cap is stupidly excessive), saying combat/magic skills don't affect other 2 hours is absolutely not true.

However, on topic....


i think its only fair to not request but DEMAND they rework how summoning magic effects our avatars and their attacks.

At level 75 most of my avatar buffs are the exact same as they are now and most attacks do the same damage (given i'm not wearing any new gear) so since they want to start singling us out i think our magic skill should reflect better with our avatars.

Main problem regarding Summoner is DoT, aka the Blood Pact timer. With capped gear you're looking at 45 seconds between each Pact. This obviously needs reducing. More Blood Pacts over time = more damage, damage per pact is fine if you gear correctly for it (i.e. don't use Full AF3+2).

Blood Pact Wards.... the newer stuff they've thought through, even if some of their effects are useless (Heavenward Howl anyone?). So, I think the following needs to be changed:
- Earthen Ward; damage formula atm is: (Lv x2)+50, meaning at Lv.99 your looking at 248 from Stoneskin, which is around 80 less than capped Stoneskin (ignoring Stoneskin gear) from the spell (which can be accessioned). Simple fix, change the formula to (Skill x 0.66), capping at 500 skill like everything else, that's at least equal to Stoneskin from other jobs.
- Noctoshield; Caps at 13 (not sure if there's any sort of Lv/skill modifier). Make it equal to around -25~-30 at Lv.99, make it affected by skill if you want, but my gimp RDM mule with 140 enhancing can pump out better Phalanxes than my Main's SMN with 536 skill.
- Fenrir Blood Pacts; For the love of god, remove the moon phase modifier. It makes the Blood Pacts unreliable, so people don't use them instead make them something like;
-- Ecliptic Growl; Currently +1~7 stats, just make it something like +5 to all stats
-- Ecliptic Howl; Currently +1~25 Acc/Eva. Making it +15 would put it on par with Blade Madrigal, with the bonus of Evasion (Madrigal still being better due to Song+ gear, Marcato and Soul Voice)
-- Heavenward Howl; We really don't care about Enaspir. Really. Just get rid of that and make it purely Endrain, duration/potency based on skill or something.
- Dream Shroud; MAB/MDB +1~10 based on time of day. compare it to Wizard's Roll, +2~12, not based on time of day (however, based partially on luck). Remove the day modifier, make it +7~10
- Curative Blood Pacts; At least add some sort of modifier (other than TP) that will increase their potency to around 600~700 at least at Lv.99. Making them more potent than Cure IV is excessive, but atm they're pretty tame considering with a subjob that grants access to Cure IV and the gear for it, you can pump out more potent Cures (even if the Blood Pacts are AoE). Remove the TP modifier period.

Avatar's Favor is at the moment a waste of time other than an emergency Refresh for the backline. Having the damage penalty for the buff is fine (gotta sacrifice something to be fair), but I'd say remove the charge up time altogether. Make it so as soon as you hit Favor, it hits maximum potency. Also, have it so the potency does not reset when using a Blood Pact.
I've always wanted to see an "opposite" if you like to Avatar's Favor. Like how you have Berserk/Defender and whatnot. Not gonna waste my time on a cheesy name, but something like Saber Dance: "Increases perpetuation cost and locks Blood Pact: Ward, while increasing Blood Pact damage and reducing Blood Pact delay" Perp+4, BP damage+20%, BP delay-15 (or something like that). Maybe throw in Avatar Haste.

[Mirage]

Avatar's Disfavor :p.

[RAIST]

How about Avatar's Grudge?

[Mokeil]

Summoning Magic Skill and Summoners have always had an interesting relationship...
I can still remember the days when all it really did was influence our spell interruption rate. (OK, it affected Spirits, too, but not many people cared about those.) We were never really penalized for having nonexistent skill, since all our avatar's skills and stats were based solely upon level. However, we were never really rewarded for having capped skill, either.

When they added that bit about Skill over the cap enhancing accuracy and durations it was really as a kind of cool bonus. Finally, a reward for having high skill! Still not a penalty for no skill, but just a bonus for high skill. And then an LS mate pointed out the rather asinine case wherein I could level up and instantly become less powerful, because my skill was no longer as high above the cap as it used to be... :(

It made me realize that higher skill should affect things like accuracy, potency, and duration, but that whole "only skill above the cap for your level" thing was BS. We are long overdue for an overhaul on this.



Main problem regarding Summoner is DoT, aka the Blood Pact timer. With capped gear you're looking at 45 seconds between each Pact. This obviously needs reducing. More Blood Pacts over time = more damage, damage per pact is fine if you gear correctly for it (i.e. don't use Full AF3+2).

Blood Pact Wards.... the newer stuff they've thought through, even if some of their effects are useless (Heavenward Howl anyone?). So, I think the following needs to be changed...


I'd like to take a second to most emphatically second these ideas! Our older wards are pretty much a joke, since the potency of them stopped scaling up back at 75 (and even then, a few were iffy). I'd really only put Hastega and the curative ones up as worth using most of the time these days.

And as for our BP delay? A 45 second hard delay cap is holding us back so much right now. Damage dealers are a lot faster now than they used to be, but we're still stuck with the same, old timer. The gear options are already there - no need to add anything else. All SE has to do is ease up on their restriction.

[Arcon]

It made me realize that higher skill should affect things like accuracy, potency, and duration, but that whole "only skill above the cap for your level" thing was BS. We are long overdue for an overhaul on this.

I thought that wasn't the case any longer? It's hard to prove, but they changed the effect for defensive BPs, so I always figured they changed it for both to follow the unique formula (bonus for every skill point between 300 and 500).

[Mokeil]

I thought that wasn't the case any longer? It's hard to prove, but they changed the effect for defensive BPs, so I always figured they changed it for both to follow the unique formula (bonus for every skill point between 300 and 500).

Hmm... I pulled the following right off of the Update History page on the PoL website:


The following blood pacts have had their effect duration lengthened:
Hastega / Crimson Howl / Frost Armor / Rolling Thunder / Lightning Armor

The following blood pacts have had their effect duration lengthened commensurate with summoning magic skill, regardless of whether or not the skill has been increased to its maximum:
Shining Ruby / Glittering Ruby / Hastega / Crimson Howl / Frost Armor / Rolling Thunder / Lightning Armor / Ecliptic Growl / Ecliptic Howl / Noctoshield / Dream Shroud

That particular bit of that update went right by me somehow. I hate saying this, but I was wrong about that. Score one for SE for taking care of it. Can we get those guys from 2010 back? They seemed to be really on top of things for Summoner.

Still these changes only effect duration. What needs pumping up now is the potency.

[Sargent]

A complete overhaul of BP:W to make skill affect Potency rather than duration would put buffs more on par with other jobs. Throw "balance" in there and SE might even consider it.

One thing I'd still like to see most is a message in my chat log when debuffs inflicted by the avatar wear off. Tidal Roar is an amazing debuff, shame you kinda have to guess when to put it back on.